Warhol’s friend, the curator Henry Geldzahler, suggested that
the artist should address tougher subjects. In response Warhol pursued
themes of death and disaster, frequently sourcing images from sensational
tabloids or pulp magazines. He was attracted to the themes of car crashes,
race riots and executions, which as images appear in often macabre, trashy
or banal formulations. These images of death and disaster retain an enigmatic
lingering power.

The Electric chair series of prints from 1971 recycled imagery
already seen in Warhol’s painting. Both canvases and prints were
derived from a photograph of the electric chair in Sing Sing Penitentiary
in Ossining, New York, where the convicted Soviet spies Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg had been executed on 13 January 1953 at the height of the Cold
War. This photograph of the electric chair was released by the press service
Wide World Photo on the day of the execution.

For the prints, the artist cropped the photograph, honing in on the empty
chair. Often using pastel decorator colours, applied in a painterly manner,
the contrast between the deathly subject and the softened almost delicate
technique underscores the horror of the execution chamber.